Men of Destiny

Of the 15 to 20,000 entries submitted to the CLIO awards each year, an average of 2 (.0001) eventually get selected for the TV Hall of Fame. In 1970, JBA produced “Men of Destiny”, which became the only retail and only non-national commercial accepted into the CLIO Hall of Fame. A 40-year old 16-mm film of that 60-second commercial is here.

Mike,
What a pleasure to hear from you!!! A year or two ago, Geoffrey Felder (Fiorello) contacted me, so Douglas Grant (Louis) and Chris McVey (Casey) still to come. You are an icon. Even to this day, if I mention I was involved in Barney’s, half the people respond, ”You’ll all Need clothes” and/or “Even then he knew”. The memories of those days live on and on. When I told Barney that we had found a kid perfect for the role, he said “Does the k-k-kid stammer?” (Barney stammered). Getting the rights to use Casey’s likeness led to him doing a radio commercial for us which won him the CLIO as the best announcer of the year beating out Laurence Olivier. Steve Gordon (who wrote your spot) left JBA for Hollywood and ended up writing and directing “Arthur”. So any connection to all those memories fills up a good day for me. Thanks. I am trying to get back to upgrading my site so if you would happen to have any stories of what happened later in your life, I would be glad to add them in. Bless you for catching the site and the spot. Good Luck! Jack Byrne.